When Zhang was a prime minister, he liked a concubine very much. He built a mansion, bought furniture and hid gold and silver treasures for her on the land of Hu Tao in Donglisan, Songzhai Village. 1582 After Zhang's death, all officials who disagreed with his political views in the past wrote to the emperor, and those who were punished by him were no longer afraid of his arbitrariness and exposed Zhang's corruption to the emperor. So, Zhang's official position was cut off, Zhang's posthumous title was abolished, and Zhang's property was copied. His concubine's residence in Songzhai Village, Liuzhai Town, Xinmi was naturally not spared. However, due to the queen mother's face, and considering the reputation of indiscriminate knife killing, the emperor could not copy it clearly, so he sent officials here anonymously, pretending to buy firewood next to Zhang concubine's house in the name of managing the Yellow River. One night, a strong wind blew, firewood caught fire, and Zhang Mansion was burned to ashes, killing more than 100 people in the mansion.
One day, Song Toulai of Songzhai Village drove a flock of sheep to graze on the overgrown site of Zhangfu. Suddenly, a lively little goat fell into a dry well. This well is located in Zhang's concubine's house, which is rarely known by ordinary people. After the Zhangfu fire, the wellhead was covered with collapsed wall soil and weeds. Because there was no water in the dry well, when Song Tou went down to save the sheep, he found a hidden warehouse in the well, which contained a lot of gold, silver and jewels. When the Song Dynasty came, everything had a bright side. A lamb that fell into a well made him a windfall. As a result, the couple began to carry gold and silver jewelry in the well every day on the grounds of transporting coal.
A year later, the Song Dynasty began to build houses on land and built six Sanjin quadrangles with more than 300 houses. Taking the existing three-story building as the center, the courtyard extends irregularly in all directions, overlooking the building from the air. The layout of the house is patchwork and ingenious. Each courtyard is independent and connected, and the architectural form is unique.
There are four well-preserved Songjialouyuan, which are two-story blue brick buildings. Although it has experienced more than 400 years of wind and rain erosion, the surface of the wall tiles in those wet parts has peeled off slightly, and other wall tiles are intact. The main building of Songjialou Courtyard is equipped with inclined doors and hanging ladders, and the wall is equipped with a three-foot thick observation deck. The door looks no different from the ordinary farmhouse, but the heavy door panel and the solid bluestone door bolt behind the door are incomparable to ordinary people. The whole building complex is criss-crossed, winding and secluded, surrounded by green trees in the courtyard. Flowers bloom in spring, ponds are full in summer, fruits are plentiful in autumn, and red plums reflect snow in winter, just like a maze. Strangers can come in but not go out.
According to Song Xiyou, an 80-year-old man, in the second year of the Republic of China, about 60 or 70 bandits colluded to steal and rob. Because the door of the main building was closed, four or five bandits took a stake and didn't break it. The first family in Song Dynasty threw stones at thieves from the observation window on the third floor. The thief who was hit was bleeding and angry, and he wanted to set fire to the building. The Song family had no choice but to shoot the bandits who attacked the building with arrows, and they escaped.
Now the owner of the Song family is no longer a descendant of Song Tou. According to the genealogy of Song family, the ancestor of Songjialou was Song Yide. In the early Ming Dynasty, he moved from Hongdong County, Shanxi Province to Xiangcheng City, Henan Province, and from Xiangcheng City to the south foot of Xingshan Mountain in the northwest of Yuzhou 15, and then moved to Asai Village in the north. Song Yide later moved his eldest son Song Jianxing from Asai to Songzhai Village in Mi County (now xinmi city). His wife took her second son Song Yunxing and her third son Song Changxing to stay in Asai Village, Yuzhou. After Song Yide moved to Songzhai Village, Mi County, his son Song Jianxing worked hard to raise mules, horses, cattle and sheep, and soon acquired 1,000 mu of land. At that time, every temple fair, the Song family rode cattle and drove sheep to the temple fair to trade. Someone asked, the vendor said it was the Songjialou compound in the east of Mi County. The Songjialou Courtyard, which came from the Song Dynasty, was bought by Song Yide and expanded year after year. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, six courtyards with two in one and four in one were formed.
Songzhai Village, marked by Songjialouyuan, had high walls and permanent gates in its heyday. From outside the village, it must cross the Huzhai River several feet deep. There is a ditch in the village, which connects with the east and west gates. This ditch is not only a village road, but also a drainage ditch when the flood comes. Living in the east of the village is the Song family who moved in earlier, while living in the west is the family who moved in later. This is still the living pattern of Songzhai Village.
After Song Yide bought the building, his business was booming, and the ancestral Song family stove candy brought the Song family a rolling source of money. Song family kitchen candy is famous for its crisp and delicious taste and lingering fragrance after eating. Every year when we enter the twelfth lunar month, the demand exceeds the supply. Therefore, Song Yide made a fortune by making stove candy. Boiling sugar raised the Song family, and the Song family maintained their family business by boiling sugar.
Although the Song family began to make a fortune because of unexpected wealth and started from agriculture, the Song family respected the martial arts and produced many celebrities and scholars. From the Songjialou courtyard, Hualing Song, Shangshu Song Mingshun, Shuxin Song Peiji, who were favored by Empress Dowager Cixi and had high martial arts, came out successively. According to legend, when Song Peiji went to Beijing to be the top scholar in Wulin, his broadsword weighing 120 Jin was thrown into the air dozens of feet. Cixi was shocked after seeing it, and chose to keep him in the Summer Palace to supervise Wanshou Mountain and practice the Kingsguard. However, because of his honesty and frankness, he offended his colleagues and was assassinated. Empress Dowager Cixi was very sad to learn that she was buried with a golden head.
The family of the Song family has been propagated from the ancestor Song Yide I to the 22nd generation, and distributed in Liuzhai, Chaohua, Quliang, Yuecun, Micun, Dawei, Qiligang, Asai and many places in Henan Province.
Songjialou quadrangle has lasted for more than 400 years. After three earthquakes, two fires, several years of war, and the changes of the world in different periods after liberation, the Song family can restore the destroyed buildings to the style of the Ming Dynasty every time, and they are still well preserved. The study and protection of the history and culture of Song houses is not only of great historical significance to the development and changes of local villages for hundreds of years, but also of great research value to the folk architecture in the Central Plains.